Kamala Harris, Supposedly Favoring ‘Will of the People,’ Reduces Virginia’s Constitution to a ‘Parchment Guarantee’

Vice President Harris is arguing that the “will of the people” supersedes Virginia’s highest law. Her position — that the ruling by the commonwealth’s supreme court against a new congressional map “gives a boost” to President Trump — ignores that constitutions exist to stop partisans from running roughshod over citizens.Ms. Harris posted Friday on X that “the people” in the Old Dominion “made their voices heard at the ballot box … Today, the Virginia Supreme Court ignored the will of the people and overturned those democratically chosen maps. … We must continue our fight to restore the power of the people.”Ms. Harris’s position is a call for direct democracy, the passions of which American constitutions seek to curb. Virginia’s charter, as The New York Sun wrote in an editorial on Friday, “requires that proposed amendments need to be passed by two sessions of the legislature, separated by an election, before being submitted to the voters.”The chief justice of Virginia’s supreme court, Cleo Powell, during her investiture ceremony on March 2, 2026 at Richmond. Mike Kropf-pool/Getty ImagesVirginia’s proposal to eliminate four Republican districts was passed six weeks after the state’s election started and 40 percent of ballots had been cast, passing with a margin of 3.4 percentage point. Less than half of registered voters participated, but the Old Dominion’s charter protects the rights of everyone in the state regardless.“The Virginia court’s ruling vindicates principles of due process and the rule of law that the Framers’ generation sought,” the Sun wrote, “in both state and federal constitutions, to preserve for ‘ourselves and our posterity.’” This, Justice Antonin Scalia told the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2011, is essential to American justice.“Every banana republic,” Scalia said, “has a bill of rights.” He added that “the former evil empire, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,” had a charter “much better than ours.” It “guaranteed… freedom of speech, of the press, of street demonstrations and protests.” Suppressing “criticism of the government” was forbidden.Justice Antonin Scalia in 2013. Via Wikimedia Commons“Whoa,” Scalia said. “That is wonderful stuff!” But it was “just words on paper, what our Framers would have called a ‘parchment guarantee.’ … The real constitution of the Soviet Union … did not prevent the centralization of power in one person or in one party — and when that happens, the game is over.”Scalia said that “the structure of our government” is “the real key to the distinctiveness of America.” Contrast this with the “people’s courts” of the USSR, which enforced communist doctrine over individual rights and ensured compliance with the regime. Citizens were judged by “people’s assessors” rather than a jury of their peers.Preferred political outcomes don’t play a role in the American judicial system. Courts are not, as this columnist wrote for The Sun two weeks ago, “a third legislative chamber that frustrated partisans can bring under their control.” They’re independent arbiters guaranteeing equal protection under the law.Attorney Matthew Seligman, representing Democratic lawmakers, outside Virginia’s supreme court at Richmond on April 27, 2026. AP/Allen G. BreedChief Justice Roberts said he was asked during his 2005 confirmation hearings if he was “going to be on the side of the little guy.” Yes, he replied, “if the Constitution says that the little guy should win… But if the Constitution says that the big guy should win, well, then the big guy’s going to win, because my obligation is to the Constitution. That’s the oath.”It’s political figures who advance policy and can seek to change laws. As California’s attorney general, Ms. Harris refused to defend Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage — passed by a percentage almost identical to the one favoring Virginia’s map — arguing it abused the initiative process and violated the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.The Supreme Court overturned Proposition 8 in 2013, ignoring the will of the seven million people who voted for it. “California is validated,” Ms. Harris said, with no lamenting that “people made their voices heard at the ballot box” or that the ruling gave her Democratic Party a boost.Ms. Harris, if she wins the presidency in 2028, will swear an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.” That includes the role it invests in the independent judiciary, without which the little guy’s rights cease to be inalienable — and the highest laws of the land aren’t worth the parchment upon which they’re written.

Kamala Harris, Supposedly Favoring ‘Will of the People,’ Reduces Virginia’s Constitution to a ‘Parchment Guarantee’

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